In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve are portrayed as innocent and susceptible creatures. Knowing that Adam and Eve were vulnerable and could easily be influenced, Satan took advantage. Satan was seeking revenge on God, and the easiest way for him to do this was to tempt God’s most prized possessions. “But I should ill become this throne, O peers, And this imperial sov’reignty, adorned With splendor, armed with power, if aught proposed and judged of public moment in the shape Of difficulty or danger, could deter Me from attempting” (Book II. 445-450). Satan shows that he desires God’s power, and he will go to any extreme to gain it.

Satan is often considered the symbol of deception. He tempts people in ways that people do not realize. In Paradise Lost, Satan overhears God telling Adam and Eve to not eat the forbidden fruit. The angels guarding the gates of the Garden of Eden, “Paradise”, are warned of Satan’s presence and ordered to not allow him to enter the garden. Satan returns to the Garden of Eden as a serpent. He finds Eve alone and attracts her by telling her that he gained the ability to speak by eating the fruit of another tree in the garden. He takes Eve to the Tree of Knowledge. Even begins to explain to the serpent that God has forbidden her to eat from the tree. The serpent explains to her that God actually wanted her to eat from the tree to show independence. She believed that God had meant eating the fruit would cause death. The serpent had eaten the fruit, and it didn’t die, so why couldn’t she? It had even gained the power of knowledge and the ability to think. “He ended; and his words, replete with guile, Into her heart too easy entrance won: Fixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold Might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregned With reason, to her seeming, and with truth” (Book 9, 733-738). The serpent’s sly use of words convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. “Earth felt...

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Ecofeminism and JohnMilton’sParadiseLost
In the King James Bible, God creates the world. He creates the sea, the field, the plants, and the animals. His most prized creation, however, is man, whom he creates in his own image. To man he gives dominion of his previous Earthly creations. The first man, Adam, chooses the name of each plant and animal. When Adam realizes that he is unfulfilled and lonely, God creates woman out of Adam’s rib. Eve, the first woman, is also subordinate to Adam (King James Bible, Genesis: 1-3). Thus, the creation story teaches us that women and the natural environmental are inherently inferior to men because God intended it to be so.
The field of ecofeminism links the environmental and feminist movements, highlighting their dual paths of exploitation and oppression at the hands of man. While men are typically associated with culture, women are associated with nature. Men are the cultivators of knowledge and civil society, with the power to govern and rule. Women, on the other hand, are the source of birth and nourishment. It is no coincidence that “God” is male while “Mother Nature” is female. Though some women find the connection to nature limiting, there is no question that a parallel exists (Plumwood 22).
Milton expands upon Genesis: 2-3 in his epic poem about Adam and Eve’s fall from the Garden of Eden. In ParadiseLost, ecofeminism is obviously...

...ideal.
As it is generally known, the appearance and assertion of the term ‘humanism’ is connected with the Renaissance although the ideas of humanity and justice which are the essential points of this notion had been developing since the ancient times. Therefore, the literature written around the time of the Renaissance contains the ideas of humanism. Moreover, the authors who wrote already during the 17th century and represented the Neoclassicism proceeded with the ideas of humanism.John Milton, who grew out of the Renaissance and classical tradition, was one of such authors. He was the greatest Puritan poet and the first English revolutionary poet in the 17th century. Milton’s ‘ParadiseLost’, written during the last stage of his life and being one of the poet’s greatest creations, covers the ideas of humanism most deeply and widely.
Since the admiration and significance of antiquity are ones of the essential concepts of humanism, it appears that this ideology is revealed in ‘ParadiseLost’ by imitating epic style of Greek and Roman poets. Starting the epic poem from the invocation of a Muse: ‘Sing, Heavenly Muse...’, ‘Say, Muse, their names then known...’, Milton follows the tradition of the ancient. It is worthy of note that Homer invokes a Muse in ‘The Iliad’, inclining to tell about one of the most important episodes of the Trojan War. Virgil did the same when he started the...

...relationship with God we must posses free will, because free will gives us the power to have faith in God, and put trust in God.
According to the Bible, and Milton’sParadiseLost, Free will did not exist in the world until God influenced Adam and Eve. God told Adam and Eve that the one rule they must follow in the garden of Eden is to never eat from the tree of knowledge. Adam and Eve took this command and blindly followed it because they were told to do so by God, and they did not even realize that they could disobey him. It was not until Satan invaded the garden to coerce Eve in to eating the apple from the tree of knowledge when the element of free will came in to play. Once Satan tempted Eve and gave her the choice of disobeying God, Eve then had the opportunity to use her free will and decide to go against Gods will. Eves decision to eat the apple from the tree of knowledge represents her selfish desires overpowering her will to conform to authoritative power. This act of defiance also represents her desire for the unknown to be revealed, and how this desire outweighs her fear of death, promised by God if Adam or Eve chose to eat the fruit. When Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge their actions symbolize the humans fall from paradise, and the innocent essence of the human is lost forever. Eve comes to Adam and wakes him in the night to tell him that she has eaten from...

...PARADISELOST ~ A BRIEF OVERVIEW
In the mid-seventeenth century, John Milton was a successful poet and political activist. He wrote scathing pamphlets against corruption in the Anglican Church and its ties to King Charles. In Milton’s day Puritanism meant having politically radical views. And at one point Milton was actually jailed for recording them on paper. ParadiseLost, as much as anything, is a series of arguments put forth by the characters, which in turn ultimately expresses Milton’s personal truth. It is, in that sense, a Puritanical work.
Milton had contemplated the composition of an epic poem for many years. For his subject matter he chose the fundamentals of Christian theology. By the time he began writing ParadiseLost in the late 1650’s, Milton had become blind. He dictated the entire work to secretaries.
ParadiseLost has many of the elements that define epic form. It is a long, narrative poem; it follows the exploits of a hero (or anti-hero); it involves warfare and the supernatural; it begins in the midst of the action, with earlier crises in the story brought in later by flashback; and it expresses the ideals and traditions of a people. It has these elements in common with the Aeneid, the Iliad, and the Odyssey.
The poem is in blank verse, that is, non-rhyming verse. In a note he added to the...

...Of Things Invisible to Mortal SightThe Holy Bible is in many ways a story of origins. The history recounted both in the Old and New Testaments has at its base the perception of a fallen humanity; beginning with the fall from Eden and the nature of evil, to the means of regaining Gods grace and the discussion of free will, it emphasizes humanitys inability to fully comprehend the nature of God and of the universe. In writing his epic ParadiseLost,John Milton is fully aware of his limitations as a mortal man; however, in an attempt to transcend the finite to the infinite, to describe the indescribable and to understand the unknown, Milton bases his arguments on Biblical theology to show that mankind has fallen from immortality to mortality and that its fallen nature prevents its physical and intellectual sight from comprehending the spiritual realm. Milton bases his arguments on numerous Biblical references where God opens peoples sight to the spiritual realm. Furthermore, Milton believes that Adam and Eves fall is also a fall into time; that is to say, the vision of history has become a linear one, whereas Gods perspective is one outside of time. Therefore, Milton finds it necessary to describe the fall of Satan, before that of Adam and Eve, and the impact it has had on history. Although this is his personal addition to the account described in the Holy Bible, Milton uses it to bring into evidence the limitations of the human...

...poem chronicles his reactions to the artistic merit of JohnMilton’sParadiseLost (1667) in seven verse paragraphs of fifty-four rhymed iambic pentameter lines. The opening sentence forms a grammatical unit of ten lines. The remaining lines, marked with a grammatical pause at the end of each couplet, follow the poetic practice of end-stopped couplets.
Initially, Marvell contrasts Milton’s “slender Book” with its “vast Design,” its Christian topic of salvation history and its cosmic scope of infinite time and space. He fears that Milton will mar or disfigure “sacred Truths” by expressing them through, or by confining them within, the devices of an epic poem, a pagan or nonbiblical art form. Also, Marvell deals bluntly with Milton’s blindness, mentioning it in the first line as well as in lines 9-10 and lines 43-44. Milton had become blind at least fourteen years prior to the first publication of ParadiseLost in 1667. Marvell assumes that Milton’s blindness may have had something to do with his choice of a biblical “Argument” or subject. Tentatively, he questions Milton’s “Intent,” comparing Milton’s motives in writing the poem to those of the biblical Samson, who sought “to revenge his sight.”
As Marvell then begins to reflect upon his experience of reading, he grows “less severe.” He favors the poet’s “Project,”...

...Throughout time, JohnMilton'sParadiseLost has been studied by many people and comprehended in many different fashions, developing all kinds of new interpretations of the great epic. There have been many different interpretations of this great epic. Milton's purpose in writing the epic was to explain the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Although the epic is similar to the Bible story in many ways, Milton's character structure differs from that of the Bible's version. All through out the epic Milton describes the characters in the way he believes they are. In book II of ParadiseLost, Milton portrays Satan as a rebel who exhibits certain heroic qualities, but who turns out not to be a hero.
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<br>Milton's introduction of Satan shows the reader how significant Satan is to ParadiseLost. He uses Satan's heroic qualities to his followers, and his ability to corrupt to show the thin line between good and evil. Satan was one of the highest angels in Heaven and was know as Lucifer, meaning, light bearer. This shows he was once a good angel. Milton makes the reader see him as a leader and a strong influence to all in his presence. He best describes Satan's ways when stating, "His pride/ had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host. / Of rebel angels, by whose aspiring/ To set himself in glory above his peers" (Milton Book...

...about who the hero is of JohnMilton’s “ParadiseLost:” Satan, Adam or Christ, the Son? Since Milton’s overall theme stated in the opening lines of Book I is to relate ‘Man’s first disobedience’ and to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, Adam must be regarded as the main hero. John M. Steadman supports this view in an essay on “ParadiseLost:” “It is Adam’s action which constitutes the argument of the epic.” Steadman continues: The Son and Satan embody heroic archetypes and that, through the interplay of the infernal and celestial strategies, Milton represents Satan’s plot against man and Christ’s resolution to save him as heroic enterprises. Christ and Satan are therefore epic machines. (268-272) Although Satan may be an epic machine, he is best portrayed as the tragic anti-hero of “ParadiseLost” or, at the very least, a main character who possesses the stature and attributes which enable him to achieve tragic status. In the Greek tradition, the essential components of tragedy are admiration, fear and pity for the ‘hero’, who has to display a tragic weakness or flaw in his character, which will lead to his downfall. It might be argued that the flaws in Satan’s character are such that we should feel no admiration, fear or pity for him, yet he can be seen to inspire these emotions. Satan’s tragic flaws are pointed out in Book I. They are...